Donbas
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited the Joint Forces Operation troops on the front line. According to his press service, he "checked on the situation several hundred meters from the line of contact" and said that it was important for the top brass to be permanently present on the front line, subject to rotation.
Ukraine's top negotiator on Donbas, Leonid Kravchuk, has said that the Kremlin is not planning to stop the conflict in Donbas, the press service of the Ukrainian delegation to the trilateral contact group has reported. He noted that Ukraine has been taking practical steps to settle the conflict but had to counter Russia's resistance in the course of negotiations.
Negotiations in the political subgroup of the trilateral contact group have stalled since August 2020, The Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office in Ukraine and in the Trilateral Contact Group (TCG), Ambassador Heidi Grau, said in a speech at the UN Security Council.
Russia-backed militants have violated the ceasefire twice since midnight, the Joint Forces Operation HQ said in the evening update. One Ukrainian serviceman was deadly wounded by sniper fire near Zaytseve. The victim is a soldier of an engineering squad from Poltava.
Near Vodyane the separatists fired with a handheld anti-tank grenade launcher. The Ukrainian army returned fire.
Media
The administrative court of appeal under the Supreme Court has opened proceedings on a lawsuit which challenges President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decree enacting a number of sanctions, including the ban on the pro-Russian TV channels – 112 Ukrayina, ZIK and NewsOne – associated with Putin's friend Viktor Medvedchuk.
Poll
Ex-President Petro Poroshenko's European Solidarity party (18.1%) ranks first in terms of public support, followed by the pro-Russian Opposition Platform-For Life party (16.8%), Servant of the People (15.5%)and Fatherland (13.2%), a survey held by the Kyiv international Institute of Sociology on 5-7 February has found out.
Security
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has exposed a cell of the Islamic State terrorist organization in Kyiv Region. The cell is allegedly headed by a militant wanted by an Eastern European state for participation in the Syria hostilities. He came to Ukraine using fake ID in 2019 and recruited a group of "like-minded" foreigners, the SBU said. Searches at their places revealed arms and ammunition